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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (284977)	4/24/2006 2:21:34 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572630

Did you see this part --- Brown cited analysis by the International Center for Technology Assessment, a private research group that has said that the real cost of gasoline--including such indirect items as oil industry tax breaks, oil supply protection costs, oil industry subsidies, and health care costs of treating auto exhaust-related respiratory illnesses--amounts to about $9 per gallon. Most agree that gas/cars are subsidized in the US and not just with the items up above. For an example, the gas tax only pays for part of the roads that are built. So much of how the American gov't operates depends on the industry that is growing and what is being done to encourage that growth as well as how much influence they can exert. During the 20th century, the American auto industry had enormous influence on the gov't and on the development of legislation beneficial to the industry. At some point during the century, one of the heads of GM said: "what's good for GM is good for the US". And it was primarily GM that bought up the urban trolley and streetcars systems in the US and dismantled them......making us even more dependent on cars and gas. Its GM that pushed for the interstate freeway system which, in turn, encouraged the purchase of more cars. Its GM that fought the gov't [not always successfully] when the gov't wanted to tax gas at the pump. Its GM that fought putting catalytic converters on cars even as the air in cities became unbreathable. Its GM that resisted increasing the mileage per gallon on cars even as we became dependent on foreign oil. Its no wonder that GM is floundering now......they've come from a place that's negative, fighting change at every turn. And its no surprise that Toyota is cleaning their clock. Of course to some degree Americans have benefited.......but its like they got an foot while GM got a mile.